Unpacking the Arab Uprisings (Part 3)

by Revolutionary Moments

[Map of Syria and Military Deployment, 2011]

This is the third part of a series addressing the Arab Uprisings. Here i discuss the impact of the new elitism that developed in various parts of the Arab world (with parallels beyond the region) in the past two to three decades. See part one here and part two here.

Economic Policy, Economic Structure, and Social Impact

The apparent social effects of the new elitism and the
policies they engendered are even deeper, affect the lives of most Syrians, and
were all too clear before January 2011. Discussed elsewhere in greater detail, the impact of this alliance had a
tremendous polarizing effect on Syrian society, one that approaches, if not
matches, the pre-Ba`th era. The effects proceeded at three levels: economic
policies, economic structure, and social impact.

It is not too challenging to demonstrate that the policies
supported by this new nexus of power are responsible for unduly removing or
destroying various forms of social safety nets (e.g., welfare, subsidies, job
provisions) that kept populations afloat or barely above water for decades. If
these provisions were not removed altogether then either their quality has
deteriorated significantly (e.g., health, education) or rations have shrunk
(e.g., bread, flower, sugar). Such drastic changes contributed to two
dangerously related phenomena: first, increasing poverty (including absolute
poverty) and thus social polarization, whereby societies are increasingly losing
their middle classes; and second, economic exclusion from the “market,” a
phenomenon contributing to a dramatic increase of the informal sector, or those
who are functioning, and living, almost completely outside the market, most of
whom inhabit rural areas, small towns, and smaller cities.

Meanwhile regime policies that emphasized the growth of
the “private” sector by providing investors with privileges, distinctions, and
exemptions did so without exacting reciprocity in practice in terms of added value,
employment, and exports. More important is that the most lucrative new economic
opportunities were monopolized by regime loyalists, relatives, or partners, all
part of the same state-business networks that developed in the 1970s and 1980s
and matured in the 1990s. The striking proximity of policy makers to policy
takers made rent-seeking and structural corruption extremely efficient,
producing a plethora of tailored policies that weakened, fragmented, and taxed
the national economy.

The broader societal impact was hard-felt in some
important sectors. The incremental—and not so incremental—goring of workers’
and labor interests in the private and public sectors is another outcome
that can be easily traceable to policies and political decisions associated
with the new elitism. The shifting of effective alliances from labor to
business was part and parcel of the unraveling of state-centered economies.
Rights, rules, and regulations increasingly favored business at the expense of
labor as time went by, starting in the 1970s (officially or unofficially).
Trade/peasant unions and labor organizations were co-opted around that time by
corporatist authoritarian systems of representation, but continued to enjoy
some privileges. It is true that the political elite started this process of
shifting alliances and privileging capital long before business actors became
prominent, but the sort of change that took place in the past three decades has
a different character. Earlier, such stripping of labor rights was considered a
function of problematic authoritarian arbitrariness, something that is frowned
upon socially and viewed as a departure from a social (developmental) contract
of sorts. More recently, and before the wave of protests and revolts, the
incremental stripping away of labor rights was carried out in the name of
“investment,” “growth,” and "modernization."

The ideological context in times gone by was one of a
socialist-nationalist coloring that provided a basis for judgment and norms.
Hence, social polarization, poverty, and developmental exclusion were
considered “wrong” and unacceptable. Today, such disturbing effects have become
the new norm, a means to a “better” future, a legitimate station along the way
to prosperity and efficiency. All such designations were short-circuited by the
uprisings, but it is too early to sound the death-knell for growth formulas
that are zero-sum in character. In part, it was this “positive”-sounding
narrative of the new policies that camouflaged the deep discontent and resentment
among the essentially voiceless.

Perhaps most significant were the developmental
implications of a new elitism that vehemently emphasized urban development (at
the expense of the neglected countryside and its modes of production) and
non-productive economic activity, characterized primarily by consumption. The
increase in shares of the tourism and service sectors at the expense of
manufacturing and agricultural production (associated with land re-reform laws
and other regulations) produced different kinds of needs in society. For
instance, there was significantly less need for skilled labor, and the
educational systems and institutions that would be required to train skilled
labor.

Whatever emerged in terms of the “new economy” and
information technology fields lagged far behind other countries, was too small
and too underdeveloped to substitute for losses in other sectors, and was
certainly not competitive internationally. Employment of hundreds of thousands
of yearly new entrants became increasingly a pipe-dream, pushing masses of
disenfranchised youth to oblivion and circumstance.

An interjectory note is in order, even if unrelated to
“policy.” Since 2003, Syria has experienced an unprecedented drought that
caused the internal migration of more than 1.2 million people, by conservative
estimates. Tens of thousands of families migrated to the cities where they
joined the ranks of the unemployed, especially in smaller towns/provinces like
Der`a, Idlib, Homs, and elsewhere. This displacement exacerbated discontent
on all those affected, directly and indirectly, and increased the social and
regional polarization to levels Syria had not seen since the middle of the last
century. Though this was a natural disaster, the government’s chronic poor planning
and mismanagement of water resources since the 1990s was one opportunity
cost of the myriad of polarizing policies pursued during the same period.

The
problem of development is not simply about rules and markets and will not be
resolved as such. Nor is the panacea of “democracy” sufficient to treat the
basic ills. Whatever else is at work, the most egregious problems stem from
various and continuing forms of political and economic disempowerment
and denial of self-determination at the individual and collective levels. Most
of these problems were/are being exacerbated by a new nexus of power that was
as unrelenting as it is/was essentially unchallenged (depending on the case).
This new elitism and the policies that came with it were not the only source of
discontent and dissent, but a guarantee that they will fester if alternative
agencies, institutions, and social contracts do not develop, even under changed
regimes. For our purposes here, we cannot underestimate the contribution of
these resultant social effects on the structural reservoir that fueled the
uprising’s origins, notably in the rural areas and small towns.

In the next post, I shall resume my discussion of the general causes of the uprising by addressing the factors, or areas of research, that should be included in any comprehensive study.